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Nothing like a road trip to end the year. My girlfriend and I had been planning to visit Bridestowe Lavender Farm earlier in December but as time slipped away from us as Christmas approached, we decided to visit during our holidays. This turned out to be a good move as we arrived at the farm when the lavender was in full bloom and near harvest. As you can see above, the fields were a sea of mauve. Click to continue »
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I’ve always maintained that trying to capture the colour and how immense the mountains are in Tasmania’s south west is ridiculously challenging. No photo could possibly do duty to the unique colours and textures and size of the peaks. This photo taken on a recent trip to Lake Pedder however is my new favourite of the Sentinel Range, taken near the old Lake Pedder track.
Captured in the mid afternoon, the weather ensured the sun was not bright enough to cause the deep contrasts I have normally experienced at this location, and at the same time the weather was good enough for the peaks not to be covered in rain clouds.
Last night I went out to do some photography with some friends. It was a style of long photography that I have been meaning to look into from some time, but have never had the time and tended to forget about. I am talking about taking photos of planes landing using long exposure techniques in the evening. An excellent example of this work may be found on Flickr.
For me, it was not a very successful night taking photos, and it reminded me that some basic preparation goes a long way.
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At night, planes are hard to miss when landing, they have a whopping big headlights on the front that can provide light up a field hundreds metres away. So it was rather annoying that even seeing the plane some 10 mins before it landed that this photo was taken out of focus.
This night I was using 2 lenses, this one was an Canon EF-S 18-135 f4-5.6, and like most “lower end” lenses, it was lacking a focus distance meter. AF does not work at night, there is not enough light for the camera to pick up an edge to focus on. Prior to the plane starting it’s final approach as it was so dark and I was lacking a torch, I could not see to focus manually so took a guess at where infinity was on the MF and shot. I was wrong.
Tip 1: Take a torch, even better a spotlight, that you can use to illuminate what you want to focus on in the photo. Ideally have a friend act as assistant in light coloured clothing, and get them to walk to the area you want to focus on and shine the light on themselves.
Tip 2: Torches are also very handy to find your way on uneven ground at night. I really missed having a torch.
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Despite living in Tasmania all my life, Sunday was the first ever time I visited Bruny Island. It has been something that has been working it’s way up my to-do list, but an opportunity arose for a day trip and so it happened.
Unfortunately the situation I was in did not give me very much time for photography, however I made very sure that I travelled the length of the island to visit the Cape Bruny Lighthouse. Built in 1838 and decommissioned in 1996, it was the oldest continually manned lighthouse in Australia.
Parks and Wildlife Service have some more information about the lighthouse here.
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This photo was taken on my first trip out with my DSLR. In my first trip to the Tasmanian West Coast in over 15 years, the main purpose of the journey was to experience the wonderful Wilderness Railway, better known as the Abt. Built in the 1890s by the Mt Lyell Mining Company, the railway connected Strahan and Queenstown for a number of years, before being closed in the mid 1960s and rails ripped up. In the late 1990s money was granted to re-establish the railway as a tourist venture.
In the photo here we see Abt Locomotive #1 taking on water at Rinadeena – the highest point of the journey and the lunchtime stopover. This is a tremendous journey and I would recommend it to anyone who happens to have a spare day when visiting the Tasmanian West Coast.
Bathurst Harbour is one of the last truly wild places in Tasmania, with very little human occupation since Tasmania was colonised. I recently had the pleasure I enjoying a day trip to the harbour with Par Avion tours, which took in many of Tasmania’s rugged peaks and bays, before landing at Melaleuca, before a boat took us along Melaleuca Creek & Inlet, visiting Clayton’s Landing before passing under Mt Rugby & through the Narrows to Bramble Cove for lunch. Return & fly back. Full details can be found at the Air Tasmania Website.
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Today was one of those days where it started out bucketing down with rain and ended up a hot, clear-skied evening. I took the opportunity to head up to O’Grady Falls today on Mt Wellington, but at the same time the heavy cloud cover provided some ethereal pictures.
I really like this photo. It feels like the branch in the foreground is reaching out to the craggy, skeletal branch of the other tree, as if to save it from the abyss that is veiled in the mist.
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The Alpine region of Mt Field National Park is a harsh environment of many extremes. Not only is the land baked by the sweltering summer sun, but it is also lashed by vicious blizzards and submerged in deep drifts of snow during winter.
It is therefore natural that some plants do not make it. In the case of trees, they die and their skeleton is left to be bleached by the weather before eventually succumbing to rot and falling to the ground.
Over my Christmas break, I visited the Lake Dobson area of Mt Field with friends, and this was the image that I ended up picking from the set of images taken
Well you know what they say about every cloud? It’s true. Taken at Cape DeSlacs recently.
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Whilst the cloud did make the desired photos I wanted to take that much harder to obtain, the above photo shows that you need to look around when taking photos to make sure that you miss nothing
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It’s funny how things work out. Yesterday’s trip to Mt Field National Park was to take pictures of Russel, Horseshoe & Sharpe Falls to include in a 2010 Calendar. As it turns out, the photos were terrible. However the road to Lake Dobson revealed the spectacular site of Mt Field well capped in snow. So of all the photos taken yesterday, this is my pick of the bunch.
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